Brenda Chester DoHarris (born 9 June 1946) is a writer and academic from

Guyana Guyana ( or ), officially the Cooperative Republic of Guyana, is a country on the northern mainland of South America. Guyana is an indigenous word which means "Land of Many Waters". The capital city is Georgetown. Guyana is bordered by the ...

Career

Doharris was born in Georgetown,

British Guiana British Guiana was a British colony, part of the mainland British West Indies, which resides on the northern coast of South America. Since 1966 it has been known as the independent nation of Guyana. The first European to encounter Guiana was S ...

and attended Bishops' High School on scholarship. Her education and experience growing up in rural Kitty were a major influence on her writing. She is a professor of English at Bowie State University in Bowie, Maryland, and a graduate of

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

and Howard University, where she received a B.A. (1970) then M.S. (1972) in English. The first Guyanese woman to run in Guyana for office of presidency of a

trades union A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ( ...

, she became actively involved in the Guyanese political movement for

democracy Democracy (From grc, δημοκρατία, dēmokratía, ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which the people have the authority to deliberate and decide legislation (" direct democracy"), or to choose gov ...

during the 1970s. She has travelled widely in

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

, the

Caribbean The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean Se ...

and China, where she attended the U.S./China Joint Conference on Women's Issues. Her area of scholarly interest is post-colonial women's literature.

Works

Her novel ''The Coloured Girl in the Ring: A Guyanese Woman Remembers'' (1997) is a fictional exploration of a young Black woman's coming of age in British Guiana of the late 1950s and early 1960s. Told against the backdrop of political and racial turbulence, the novel employs a first-person narrative format and proffers a well-defined portrait of the main character's recollection of her family life, her oppressive school teachers, her friends' doomed inter-racial romance and her thoughts on race and identity. According to a review in the College Language Association Journal, "The story is remarkable for its picture of a Guyanese village, but it requires a sequel to truly explore the life of this nameless narrator, who remains more an onlooker and reporter than the central persona of this piece." A review from Kaieteur News describes it as "...a bitter-sweet narrative, one that is poignant and deeply moving, and made even more so by a feminist perspective that rightly celebrates the sustaining role of women in colonised societies." ''Calabash Parkway'' (2005) is about Guyanese immigrant women in Brooklyn, New York, women who struggle against the odds to gain legal residence. Doharris was a contributor for ''Walter A. Rodney: A Promise of Revolution'' by Clairmont Chung. 2012. ()

Awards

''Calabash Parkway'' won the Guyana Prize for Literature."Calabash Parkway: A Novel"
Reviewed by Gokarran Sukhdeo, ''Guyana Journal''

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Doharris, Brenda Living people Howard University alumni Bowie State University faculty Guyanese emigrants to the United States Guyanese novelists 20th-century novelists 21st-century novelists 20th-century women writers 21st-century women writers 1946 births